“What do we do now?”

That was the question OnePlus CEO and founder Pete Lau asked himself and his team after finding out that Apple set their next major event on the same date as the OnePlus 6T launch.

What OnePlus originally thought would be the best, most timely date to unveil their upcoming flagship after all the launches we’ve seen this month, turned out being the worst.

“Our goal is to make sure it gets the time and attention it deserves,” Lau said in a blog post on the company’s official forum. “[Feedback] showed us that if we chose to stick to our original timeline, launching the OnePlus 6T on October 30, we would be overshadowed by Apple.”

With that, the OnePlus 6T’s launch date has been moved to October 29 — still in New York at 11am EDT.

OnePlus says that this decision was made after lots of deliberation between themselves and input from fans. Lau added: “We have only just begun our journey and cannot afford to let one of the most important products in our history be affected by another great product launch.”

For those who bought a ticket but can’t attend the event anymore, they’ll get a full refund. Anyone who has to make changes to their travel and accommodation arrangements will be assisted by OnePlus; added costs will be covered individually.

For everyone else who’ll be watching the live stream from home, it simply means we’ll get to see OnePlus’ next flagship smartphone a day sooner.

The OnePlus 6T is expected to be similar in a lot of ways to the OnePlus 6 launched six months ago, except it’ll come with a smaller notch and in-display fingerprint scanner — at the expense of the audio port, however.

Months after launch, the coveted Android Pie is still the rarest operating system out in the wild. With Android’s notoriety, the new operating system’s incredibly low distribution rates don’t come as a surprise. Currently, only the top smartphones have tasted a piece of Pie. Even then, new adopters are only slowly trickling in.

Surprisingly, Sony has accelerated their upgrade schedules, leaving other brands trailing in the dust. Already, the Xperia XZ2 and XZ2 Compact are receiving Android Pie updates. Meanwhile, the new XZ3 comes with the operating system fresh out of the box.

Today, the company has announced further updates to the old schedule. Within the next few weeks, Sony’s older models will receive the new update. Starting October 26, Android Pie will roll out to the XZ Premium, the XZ1, and the XZ1 Compact. Meanwhile, the XZ2 Premium can enjoy the new operating system starting November 7.

Additionally, the XA2, the XA2 Ultra, and the XA2 Plus will get Android Pie on March 4.

Notably, the announced phones are older than Android Pie’s current lineup. This is the most concrete schedule that Android has enjoyed. While other brands have promised future updates, not many have fulfilled their end of the bargain.

That said, expect the same dismal adoption rates in the future. Even now, the preceding Android Oreo still hasn’t taken over a sizable share of the smartphone market. While Sony’s announcement is a step up, can we expect other brands to step up as well?

SEE ALSO: Sony unveils Xperia XZ3 with best-possible specs and features

Xiaomi is on a roll just a few days before they officially announce their newest smartphone — the Mi Mix 3. After confirming a couple of advanced specifications, the Chinese company posted a teaser video about the phone’s much-speculated camera mechanism.

Apart from having 10GB of memory and uber-fast 5G connectivity, the Mi Mix 3 has another special feature: manual sliding mechanism. We’re slowly going back to the good old days of slider phones, but the Mi Mix 3’s implementation is for the cameras.

Fortunately, Xiaomi still refrained from putting a notch on the new Mi Mix phone and resorted to another design option. The OPPO Find X and Vivo NEX are notch-free, borderless phones using pop-up cameras, but both differ in application. As for Xiaomi, they wanted something a bit different. Here’s the teaser:

I could do this all day.😎 pic.twitter.com/GRAF4jPMZt

— Mi (@xiaomi) October 18, 2018

At last, Xiaomi confirmed the design of the Mi Mix 3’s cameras and, frankly, this is something we are looking forward to. The video shows the manual sliding cameras of the Mi Mix 3; it’s quite similar to the Find X’s but without the use of a motor.

Here are more photos of the Mi Mix 3 taken from the teaser:

Apart from the mechanism, the teaser also unveiled a few things about the Mi Mix 3. First, it supports facial recognition to enable face unlock and authentication. The front cameras will have dual sensors with a resolution of 24 megapixels. And lastly, the phone supports contactless payments.

Xiaomi will have a number of features to talk about during the Mi Mix 3 launch that’s happening on October 25 in Beijing.

SEE ALSO: Xiaomi confirms 10GB RAM and 5G connectivity of the Mi Mix 3